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♦ 

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c Station’s tStitf 


DEATH OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

I 

A DISCOURSE 


DELIVERED IN THE 



OF THE 

UNITED STATES GENERAL HOSPITAL, 

NEAR FORT MONROE, VA., 


SUNDAY, APRIL 29tli, 1865, 


AND REPEATED RY SPECIAL REQUEST IN 


ST. PAUL’S CHURCH, NORFOLK, VA., 

13Y JAMES MARSHALL, 

M 

Chaplain U. S. Army. 


PUBLISHED BY BATTERY ‘F. 3D PA. II. ARTILLERY. 


> I *4 

* I 

» t 


SYRACUSE, N. Y.: 

THE DAILY JOURNAL STEAM BOOK AND JOB PRINTING OFFICE. 

1865. 









































E>5'! 


y^c. 



















CORTtESPOISTDElSrCE. 


Camp Hamilton, ) 

Near Fort Monroe, Va., May 8th, 1865. \ 
Rev. James Marshall, 

Dear Sir : — The members of Battery F, Third Pa. Heavy Ar¬ 
tillery, stationed at this place, having listened with pleasure to the 
sermon delivered by you on the death of our late President,— 
Abraham Lincoln,—formed a committee to raise funds for its pub¬ 
lication. Appreciating the merits of the discourse, and knowing 
that good will follow in its wider circulation, we are anxious to ob¬ 
tain copies of it to send to our friends and acquaintances at home. 

Therefore, the undersigned, as Committee in behalf of the Bat¬ 
tery, would respectfully ask a written copy for publication. 


We are very truly, 


Sergt. J. W. Thompson, 

Corp. A. Caroll, 

“ James Fordiiam, 

u 

C. Foucht, 

“ W. Brooks, 

u 

W. Gunzier, 

“ E. K. Kinsey, 

a 

E. Lloyd, 

“ A. M. IJoster, 

u 

J. Woolf, 

“ T. IT. Blake, 

a 

G. Primrose, 

“ L. Howell, 

a 

II. Shoemaker, 

“ J. W. Cooke, 

u 

G. Kelts. 

“ J. C. Woodburn, 

u 

W. Love, 

“ H. G. Grier, 

u 

0. Benner, 

“ F. McDonnell, 

u 

W. Siiriver, 

Corp. R. W. Jackson, 

u 

J. Marsula, 

Corp. W. 

Case. 


U. S. General Hospital, 



Officers’ Division, Fort Monroe, Va., > 
May 12 1865. ) 

Sergt. J. W. Thompson and others of Committee, 

Soldiers :—Your request to publish my discourse on the death 
of Abraham Lincoln, late President of the United States, is re¬ 
ceived and granted. In common with millions, your hearts are 
buried in grief at this sad calamity. My imperfect discourse is a 
poor transcript of the soul’s true thoughts at this time. Your 
kind interest thus expressed, however, will form a new bond be¬ 
tween us. During three years at this hospital, several times have 
the patients and attendants expressed similar appreciation of our 
humble efforts. Such assurances of mutual friendship, called forth 
in permanent form, by thrilling and terrible events, will give us 
all strength for civil life, when the dangers and duties of soldiers 
have ceased. 

Sincerely Your Friend, 

JAMES MARSHALL. 










DISCOURSE. 


The beauty of Israel is slain upon thy high places : 

HOW ARE THE MIGHTY FALLEN IN THE MIDST OF THE BAT¬ 
TLE I 

2nd Sami, 1st chap., 19 th & 25 th vs. 

And devout men carried Stephen to iiis burial and 

MADE GREAT LAMENTATION OVER HIM. 

Acts, 8 th chap., 2nd v. 

We need select no special passages from the Bible to ex¬ 
press our grief when afflicted, or our horror when injured. 
God’s word speaks unmistakably, from Genesis to Revelation, 
of the value of sympathy, and of the guilt of crime. Every 
page either breathes the fragrance of the one, or flashes the 
condemnation of the other. 

We have chosen the words of lamentation and grief, for 
our hearts to-day throb heavily at the portals of the tomb. 
The President of the Nation has fallen. There lies one 
dead in every house. For four long, full, historic years we 
have been sitting in the shadow of death, but never so sadly 
as now. 

Glance over rebellious States, and what immense numbers 
of martyred heroes ridge the Southern plains and hill-sides. 
David’s mournful elegy over the fallen of his people forms 
our heart-wail: “ The beauty of Israel is slain upon thy higli 
places.” Now, at the head of that glorious throng of dead 
heroes, we must place the name of imperishable record— 
Abraham Lincoln—who fell also a martyr to human liberty. 
When robed with integrity in motive, and with mercy in ac¬ 
tion, as a great Nation’s leader, representative and saviour, 
treachery and cowardice, Joab-like, struck for Treason and 
Slavery. The trembling wires sent stunning shocks into 



6 


soul-chambers ecstatic with joy over dawning peace,—Abra¬ 
ham Lincoln had been murdered by the pistol-shot of an as¬ 
sassin ! Oh! horrible! horrible! Wail on ye‘orphaned peo¬ 
ple,—“ How are the mighty fallen in the midst of the battle.” 
Millions had gone in heart and head with our Chief Magis¬ 
trate through four years of most gigantic trials, and every 
secular and sacred rostrum was just toning the public heart 
to follow him in a grand song of magnanimous triumph, 
when songs of victory are minored to grief inexpressible. 
But God’s ways are not man’s ways. We bow to His inscru¬ 
table Providence. Let us review the life-work of our la¬ 
mented friend and father, let us memoralize his goodness and 
greatness, and while bearing his sacred ashes amid weeping 
millions to their last resting place on the Illinois prairie, let 
us so stamp our affection for our second Washington upon • 
the nation and the world, that the historian of 

©he Ration’s’ (brief. 

when recording the funeral honors of our martyr President, 
will but speak for the mourning myriads as the Holy Evan¬ 
gelist wrote of the first Christian martyr—“And devout men 
carried Stephen to his burial and made great lamentation 
over him.” 

Our Nation began to mourn when Slavery armed for bat¬ 
tle—when this desolater of national integrity dishonored the 
old flag floating over Sumter in 1861. Grief and gladness 
have since then risen and fallen like tide-waves—sometimes 
the bolt would cleave to the ocean-depths of sorrow, again 
the spray of the crest-rising joy would kiss the stars. For 
four eventful years disaster has depressed and warned ; then 
triumph has cheered, but justice of the cause and hope in 
the triumph of truth at last have kept us firmly pressing on¬ 
ward to peace. Mark the progress. A three thousand mile 
chain of sea-girt battlements have surrendered to loyal blows. 
Immeasurable territorial expanse seized by traitors has been 
swept by the sirocco blasts of war until loyalty has sown and 
peace is preparing to reap. We have waded through treas- 


7 


ure and blood till we were rejoicing in President Lincoln’s 
first inaugural promise. We liad seen broken the military 
power of the Rebellion. We had seen irresistible and invin¬ 
cible loyal hosts converging from all points of the compass, 
through valleys and across mountain ranges, bearing aloft 
on their banners the signal vow that the citadel of the Re¬ 
bellion must fall, or its defences be sandalled and girdled with 
the loyal slain. We saw Richmond fall. We saw the eter¬ 
nal infamy of foul treason gleaming through the smoke of 
her charred ruins. We saw myriads of Southern people, with 
no heart in rebellion, delivered from a military despotism 
unparalleled in the annals of time. We saw the graves of 
tens of thousands extending from the gates of the doomed 
city far away to Washington, Antietam and Gettysburg on 
the north, to Fortress Monroe and Carolina coasts on the 
south-east, to the Atlantic slopes of the Alleghanies on the 
south, to the Mississippi valleys on the west—all around the 
enfortressed den of traitors and their civil and military 
strength, we saw lying the unburied bones and rising the ob¬ 
scure graves of myriads slain valliantly fighting for Liberty 
and Nationality. The avalanche onset of the long fighting, 
mustering, strengthening, conquering loyal hosts, organized 
by the mighty energies of the War Department of the Na¬ 
tion and directed by the central mind of the Chief Magis¬ 
trate, had crushed the rebellion, made prisoners its armies, 
scattered its leaders into flights and fastnesses, and from the 
city whose capture had cost so much blood and treasure, the 
President of the Nation had foreshadowed unparalleled 
magnanimity toward the insurgent enemies to bring peace 
to the whole people. Yes, peace was dawning upon a re¬ 
deemed, renewed, and free Nation; great and just plans 
were tasking the energies of that great and just and generous 
soul; the Nation was asserting its dignity and grandeur by 
mountain-surges of joy dashing in unspeakable gladness 
against the battered walls of Fort Sumter over whose recap¬ 
tured ruins was rising, amid shouts of glad hearts, thunders 
of artillery, and emblems of military and naval strength, and 


8 


l. 


triumph, the same old flag,by the same true hand that first was 
forced to lower it to treason in ’61, to become the martial 
shroud over the grave of a loyalty from which have risen, 
during four years of trial and triumph, a beauty, and glory, 
and Liberty, and a Union that will live forever—then, on 
that consecrated day of our Lord’s Crucifixion, and the new 
anniversary of our Nation’s redemption from treason and 
slavery—April 14th 1865—while, on the one hand, History 
at Sumter, filled the Nation with joy, and robed it in gar¬ 
ments of thanksgiving,—on the other hand, Tragedy , at the 
Capital, plunged it into the deepest grief,—stunning, inex¬ 
pressible grief—caused business to lock its doors, close its 
shutters, cease its hurry, filled the streets with mourners, 
paralyzed Worldiness, crowded the sanctuaries with worship¬ 
pers, changed the trappings of triumph into the habiliments 
of woe, the songs of victory into the dirges of grief, draped 
the drooping starry flag, and clothed the Nation in sack-cloth 
and silence,—all were stunned, horrified, agonized, groping 
for relief, strong men staring in silence and tears into each 
others faces, the rich and the poor, the white and the black, 
swelling in concert the chorus of lamentation and gloom,— 
all instinctively bowing in supreme devotion to Almighty 
Providence, wdio doetli all things wisely. Our Chief Magis¬ 
trate w*as dead—our country’s savior v r as murdered in 
Washington—the great, the good, the v r ise, the just, the 
merciful man,—Abraham Lincoln,—the people’s friend, the 
slave’s emancipator, America’s truest and most glorious 
representative, humanity’s pride—having lived a life stamp¬ 
ed with the spirit of his own immortal words—“With 
malice towards none, and charity to all”—this great head 
and savior of our Republic had been slain, cowardly, treach¬ 
erously slain, by an assassin! The wretch did not murder 
Abraham Lincoln because he w T as unjust or a tyrant, but 
through vengeance that hellish treason had been defeated, 
lie tried to assassinate the American people and their dearest 
rights by assassinating their almost unanimously chosen 
leader and representative and truest friend, after they had 



0 



tried him in the stormiest history of nations, and found him 
faithful and competent, and honest and just. Oh ! why 
this terrible affliction ? Why this personal as well as Na¬ 
tional grief? Are we dumb to God’s great controversy with 
us ? Do we sit, Pharaoh-like, ’mid obduracy and death, un¬ 
heeding both promise and threatening ? Are we going to 
wrong the enslaved, rob him of his birth-rights, and let the 
traitor and the tyrant go free ? But God’s purposes are wise 
and just. They will prevail. We bow to Heaven’s decrees. 
We acknowledge over the lifeless corpse of our murdered, 
though martyr President—“ God alone is great! ” Let us 
accept and appropriate the chastisement to the attainment 
of life’s hardest lesson— 

“ Tliy will be done! Though shrouded o’er 
Our path with gloom, one comfort, one 
Is ours—to breathe, while we adore,— 

Thy will be done.” 

In giving relief to our hearts to-day, burdened and weighed 
down as they are by the terrible calamity that has befallen 
us, we assume four propositions to illustrate the source and 
character of the grief that runs like a river, deep and silent 
beneath our National happiness. 

I The sacrifices of treasure and blood demanded from 
the people to preserve the Nation against the ingratitude and 
crime of traitors, who inaugurated the war to overthrow the 
United States Government. 

David’s history, before he wrote his elegy on the death of 
the slain of Israel, was fraught with wisdom. Ilis life 
Avas filled with the recurring scenes of sun-shine and cloud, 
light and darkness, joy and sorrow, prosperity and adversity. 
He sought to bring his family to live in the spirit of Joshua 
—“ as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” But 
pride, arrogance, envy, jealousy, rebellion, every foul thing 
of perdition was in his household. However wise his plans, 
unselfish his purposes, magnanimous his rule, unflinching 
his integrity, fervent his prayers, still there would arise a 
Cain or a mocking Ishmael, or a profane Esau, or a Judas, 
or a persecuting Saul to kill, lay waste, and plunge into 
2 


10 


grief. Yet lie was kind and magnanimous. He loved his 
people, loved liberty, loved his enemies, loved his God. He 
could not punish. He shrank from severity. He would not 
slay Saul, the old King, when hidden by the wayside from 
his pursuing vengeance, but he clipped off a strip from Saul’s 
garment as he passed. His life was in David’s hands, but 
mercy triumphed. So when our Nation was mild, and in¬ 
finitely light in its rule, yet pride and rebellion run riot in 
the national household. Cains, and Islimaels, and Esaus, 
and Judases struck hands to rule or ruin. Our lamented 
President begged and promised and besought these impious 
traitors to be loyal and just. “ In your hands” said he, “ my 
dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the mo¬ 
mentous issue of civil war. The Government will not as¬ 
sail you. You can have no conflict without being your¬ 
selves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in Hea¬ 
ven to destroy the Government, while I shall have the most 
solemn one to preserve, protect and defend it.” Sublime 
were his words of merciful refrain, even while leading men 
in high position were listening, yet secretly planning the 
overthrow of our most sacred rights. Some were drilling 
their forces for carnage, while others were remaining in pow¬ 
er to learn this untried President’s policy, that it might the 
more easily be nullified. Yet to them and their infamous 
accomplices he said, before issuing a single order from the 
Executive desk,—“ We are not enemies, but friends. We 
must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, 
it must not break our bondsfof affection. The mystic chords 
of memory, stretching from every battle-field and patriot 
grave to every living heart and liearth-stone all over this 
broad land will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when 
again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels 
of our nature.” His prophecy on March 4tli, 1861, has 
been fulfilled, but hundreds of fresh battle-fields have filled 
up history and consecrated the broad land to the most sacred 
Union, so that the better angels of our nature, developed 
and disclosed by the shock of war, are beginning to strike 







11 


memory’s mystic chords that will for ages, we trust, swell 
the chorus of a freer, nobler, stronger Union. Although the 
President made his affecting appeal to men whom the 
Government had only educated and honored, yet they 
schemed and pressed on in Treason. Opposing principles 
were at work. The conflict was irrepressible. Pebels and 
loyalists crossed swords to settle the country’s destiny,—one 
struck for independence and slavery, the other met the shock 
with firmness to preserve its own. One party forced war 
upon the country to destroy it, the other accepted the war to 
save it. Pebels disowned their own legal offspring. They 
had always been in power. The laws were their own. Per¬ 
jury gave impetus to treason and theft of Federal property or¬ 
ganized treason into aggression. Mustering millions de¬ 
ployed for battle, and O ! how the beauty of Israel has been 
slain upon the Gilboa mountains of the Union ! What 
lights have gleamed out on the midnight gloom from homes 
of the first-born slain. Rachels have wept for their slaugh¬ 
tered children, mothers have listened for the return of their 
captured heroes, whose prisons became eharnal houses of 
starvation and death. And while the bereaved and anxious 
waited in silent anguish for the home-returns, their spirits 
would conquer the sorrow-stricken frames, only to meet, we 
trust, in a better home-return the spirits of the captives re¬ 
leased from the cruelty of Southern prisons by the starvation 
system or the dead-line shots. Many Jacobs during the war 
have also cried—“ Me have ye bereaved of my children. 
Joseph is not, and Simeon is not, and ye will take Benjamin 
away. All these things are against me.” How many Ja¬ 
cobs are to-day weighed down with grief, because so many 
sons and brothers, Joseph, Simeon and Benjamin, have fallen 
in this war for freedom. Widowhood and orphanage stand 
in weeds as warnings against undervaluing sacrifices. They 
plead for justice to the loyal, not for fellowship with treason. 
They are badges of national friendship, out-growing from the 
blood of martyrs, not of sympathy for misplaced mercy and 
outraged justice. Gilded treason does not offset the most 



12 


obscure loyalty. When I see preference given to our life¬ 
long murderers, when the luxuries of the land fill their board 
at loyal expense, when our own people crave the smiles and 
fear the frowns of those demanding a premium for their 
treasonable crimes, surely we must tremble, when we reflect 
that God is just and his justice cannot sleep forever. Our 
humblest private is a king to the most distinguished assassin 
of the Nation. He belongs to the nobility of patriotism. 
Some one mourns his sufferings or his death. Affliction, 
on his account, may be unrecognized because it proceeds from 
some hovel-home, yet it mingles with the general grief over 
a Mitchell, a Wadsworth, a Sedgwick, or the President, whose 
blood has sealed the cause of the century, and helps swell 
the deep dark tide of National grief. 

But not death alone has called forth sacrifices such as no 
Nation ever before displayed to sustain its integrity and 
honor. Treasures untold have rolled into the general sup¬ 
port. Industry has plied every invention to make its touch, 
like that of Midas, golden. Sacred house-hold relics, the 
last gift from a dying parent, the antique though well-used 
Bible,—the choice heirlooms of the family ancestry—all have 
gone to bring comforts to the absent heroes. Both rich and 
poor have tied thus their heart-strings to many battle-fields 
and couches of suffering. Treasures of all, like ever-recur¬ 
ring showers, have formed the grand river of benevolence, 
on whose surface, floating and singing, were the sons and 
daughters of affliction. Big emotions and many tears have 
arisen from their fruits of toil, and accompanied their heir¬ 
looms of home which they have sent on the sacred mission. 
The only openings in these dark war-clouds of grief are the 
dawning hopes of a country saved, renewed, purified, free— 
a country passionately loved by a Chief just crowned with 
the glory of martyrdom—a Chief who inflexibly plead her 
cause against the frowns of the world—a Chief whom God 
specially endowed as the Moses to lead us through the wil¬ 
derness to the land of peace. But blinded and appalled and 
crushed with grief and horror were they when they heard he 





13 


was murdered, while all were basking in the sun-beams of 
exalted triumph. Extinguish the dazzling noon-day sun 
with a puff, and not greater would seem the shock. Every 
household is shrouded in woe,—-civilized nations will be ap¬ 
palled. Rebellion, frenzied and fiendish by defeat in mer¬ 
ciful triumph, records its guilt more deeply for historic ex¬ 
ecration, by hiring assassins to climax its category of crimes 
against humanity in basely murdering this friend and father 
of millions of freemen. Oh ! the imperishable infamy of the 
dramatic murderous cowardice that dishonored the motto of 
dishonored Virginia. It is well that the basest criminal 
with the basest accomplices of the nineteenth century met 
his death of wonderful retributive justice within her borders. 
The tragedy would want completion had not a retributive 
Providence struck him down while fleeing for refuge to the 
fugitive chiefs of the rebellion. God grant that those lead¬ 
ing assassins may be caughtthen, in the words of Jefferson 
Davis in the Senate on John Brown, while advocating his 
execution for his Harper’s Ferry raid—“ who would seek to 
dull the sword of justice in favor of him whose crime con¬ 
nects with it all that is most abhorrent to humanity, the 
violation of every obligation to the social compact, the laws, 
the Constitution, the requirements of public virtue and per¬ 
sonal honor?” We can but commiserate this murderous 
tool of the slave-power, and deepen our hatred of that bar¬ 
barous despotism, that massacred in cold blood the citizens 
of Lawrence, that burned negroes at Fort Pillow, that flung 
by wholesale North Carolina Unionists, that fired Northern 
hotels filled with helpless women and children, that starved 
to death, after robbing of all money and decent clothes, 60,- 
000 unarmed and powerless prisoners, that sealed its eter¬ 
nal infamy by the assassination of one of the wisest and best 
friends of the human race. Where is chivalry ? Where is 
manhood ? Where is that long boasted honor? Where is 
civilized warfare ? Our sacrifices to save our Nation are 
teaching us the elements of our weakness. We have freely 
given the flow r er of our youth and manhood to the most sa- 



14 


creel cause. The blood of our noble leader must flow before 
the sacrifice to human liberty is complete. Let loyalty be 
draped,—a great patriot has fallen in the midst of the battle. 
Let the people weep,—they have lost a trusted friend. The 
Nation’s grief is eloquent,—its great heart to-day is swollen 
with sighs, and broken with sobs. 

II. But not simply personal and public sacrifices have 
made us mourn, but we grieve with shame over the crimes 
latent in American life , which this war has developed. 

When we dwell on our sins, nearly all flow through that 
dark labyrinth of wrong—Human Slavery. Other besetting 
sins exist, but this deap-seated crime outstrips all in its atro¬ 
cious enormities. Daily we are shocked and stunned at the 
deeds of its advocates. Our legislative history has a tyrant 
in it, whose culmination in decision was robbing a black man 
of all manhood as in the Dred Scott case, and whose climax 
in effort to usurp power was expressed in inaugurating anew 
Government by overthrowing an old one, on purpose to for¬ 
tify and perpetuate it. That effort has failed through giant 
struggles and the most sacred and costly sacrifices. We knew 
long since that its defenders were adepts with bowie knives 
and revolvers. In a country professedly free, there was the 
deepest despotism and greatest exclusion or most menial si¬ 
lence on the part of its opposers. Its influence has scarred 
all our pages Avith injustice and outrage. It has kept the 
Avhite masses in ignorance and made them the tools of the 
educated tyrants. I make exceptions to all classes, but the 
fact is historical that the undeceived lower classes and the 
true men of the highest intelligence and loyalty have been 
kept in the minority so completely that tyrants and slaves 
have been the prominent classes. The former of these have 
moulded Southern history and shaped public sentiment at 
the National Capital, and clouded the Avliole land with its 
influence. When a Senator Avas brutally clubbed for free¬ 
dom of speech, the South Carolina Brooks Avas publicly ap¬ 
plauded and re-elected by his people as a test of approval. 
The AAdiole press sanctioned this act, and hence the reading 




masses were educated to sanction a violence tlie Christian 
world condemned. That blow was not fatal, yet the design 
was as murderous as the attack upon Secretary Seward. It 
was universally approved. That fact is the key to the Re¬ 
bellion and all its infamy. The effect of Slavery is to usurp 
conscience and sway reason to choose any device to gain its 
end. It seems to paralyze all moral sensibility, to ignore all 
heart-sanctities, and to justify success however barbarously 
gained. Hence the daily unfolding of its guilt in the lives 
of its devotees. We knew nothing of it till God afflicted us 
with this war. Now we behold its sins reach to Heaven 
against us for our long complicity in its gigantic wrongs. 
God’s justice has wrung out redress for grievances against 
his oppressed. How deep and grand and exalted President 
Lincoln’s faith in God’s dealing for righteousness in this 
scourge of war, Atdien he says in his last inaugural—“ If God 
wills that this scourge of civil war continue until all the 
wealth piled up by the bondman’s two hundred and fifty 
years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop 
of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn 
with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago; so 
still it must be said, that the judgments of the Lord are true 
and righteous altogether.” Retributive justice herein shown 
where blood drawn by the lash must be atoned for by blood 
drawn by the sword, explains the cause of our troubles. The 
citadel of slavery has been assaulted, it has surrendered to 
war’s iron legions, and Oh! what disclosures line the last 
four eventful years. Let the historian catalogue Calcutta 
“ Black Holes,” French Bastiles, and Spanish Inquisitions,— 
but what names will read on the middle of the nineteenth 
century like Libby Dungeon, Castle Thunder, Belle Isle, 
Salisbury, Millen, Andersonville,—all will be synonymous 
with cruelty, starvation, misery, death. How our soldiers 
suffered and died at the hands of the minions of the slave 
power, without the religious press or the pulpit South raising 
a voice only to justify it! But the roll of myriads of mar¬ 
tyrs must be completed and honored in God’s good provi- 


16 


clence by the murder of Abraham Lincoln, by a hired assas¬ 
sin, who first left on record his conviction of the justice of 
Slavery and his sympathy with any means to perpetuate it 
or avenge its death. But despite these years of terrible war, 
we have men yet who gloss this crime, excuse its existence, 
and council caution against irritation of these “ misguided 
and erring brethren.” While mourning in the deep shadow 
of the greatest crime of the age, we must be careful we don’t 
offend somebody ! Away with such flunkyism. We have 
been despised because of our weakness and doughface sub¬ 
mission to these lordly behests. For years they have des¬ 
pised and cudgelled us, now they have arisen to assassinate 
us! Let us have a display of manhood that will command 
respect from savages. God’s Divine interposition prevented 
too bitter a cup at once. The plot was for anarchy by assas¬ 
sinating the President, Vice President, Lieutenant General, 
Secretary of War, and Secretary of State, thus prevent¬ 
ing the calling of an election for a new ruler ; but it failed, 
and as a result we have strength and order intensified, 
instead of ruin. Let us thank God and rejoice in our 
form of government as the most flexible, powerful and 
best. Let us have irritation of this great crime of Slavery 
until it is dug up by the roots and destroyed. Agitation 
gives light, and intelligence gives strength, Attrition re¬ 
moves the crusty filth and reveals the gem. The deep 
waters are purified by their mighty upheavals. So the peo¬ 
ple are enlightened and elevated by passing through these 
fiery ordeals. But some will not see the dark deeds of this 
evil. Even experience in a Southern prison does not break 
up hereditary prejudice. Rebels must give us another dose 
of cruelty. After systematic starvation and murder have 
failed to destroy the cause of equal rights, a rebel sur¬ 
geon must carefully collect infected yellow fever cloth¬ 
ing at Bermuda to ship to Rew York, Philadelphia, 
and Boston “ to destroy the masses ” by pestilence, as the 
other means had failed. Truly God is holding a controversy 
with us. He is braying us in the mortar of His Providence. 




We had fought every phase of rebellion, we supposed; we 
had been victorious at a great cost; we had at last, under the 
guide of him whose heart was all goodness and greatness, 
most magnanimously overlooked all,—counting bygones as 
bygones, hailing the dawn of goodwill and brotherly love 
again on a new basis and a more thorough acquaintance; we 
were watching with thrills of joy the skyward shooting sig¬ 
nals of victory from all homes in the Nation . We were lis¬ 
tening with feelings of awe to shaking, thundering salvos of 
joy; we were catching the poetic genius and vigorous thought 
and feelings of mercy that were flowing from the pens of 
the great and the learned; we were retracing in dressed ar¬ 
mor the pathway through battle and victory to peace— 
when lo ! the Nation’s heart was pierced. Its walls were like 
a cemetery hung with the emblems of grief, vain-glory was 
wrenched from our exulting sky, and there flashed forth 
through the boundless gloom the words of Him to whom be 
all honor and glory and praise,—“Be still,—and know that I 
am God.” 

Why should the rebels murder this most merciful friend 
they had without cause ? Yet this crime and kindred ones 
have been planned and publicly advocated since November 
1860. The whole press South, without rebuke from the pul¬ 
pit, have offered a price for this man’s head. A corrupt 
spmpatliy North, guilty and almost infernal in its silence or 
its blatant unbelief in the possibility of such deeds by the 
chivalry, has echoed the Southern sentiment in such words 
as “buffoon,” “ape,” “ monster,” “ usurper,” and “ tyrant.” 
The very fact that Northern sympathy was permitted thus 
to talk was proof against their infamous slanders. Had he 
been a usurper, why did the people choose him with such 
unanimity ? Had he been a tyrant, why were not our prisons 
filled with such criminals as have urged on to the commis¬ 
sion of this deed against the American people? Truly a 
civilization that can palliate such iniquity as this Rebellion 
has inaugurated and practiced, needs reform or eradication. 
It is civilization apostatized—civilization without the moral 
3 


IS 


forces of the age that elevate and ennoble. It is Christianity 
without Christ. God has brought us to see our national sins 
as we never saw them before. Our covenant with such 
monstrosity against humanity must be broken. Because we 
have justified slavery under the Constitution, we are suffer¬ 
ing God’s judgments. Human rights underlie Constitu¬ 
tions. We are told this evil is dead. Let us not be deceived. 
It only slumbers. Even loyal States refuse to accept the 
logic of the war, or the decisions of God’s Providence. 
They stand back and brace against the march of events. 
New Jersey, Kentucky and Delaware refuse to ratify the anti¬ 
slavery Amendment to the Constitution. Clothed with the 
saddest wo, as we are to-day, this grief will sting their future 
sons with shame because their fathers were wallowing in the 
depths of our National corruption. All the traitors North 
and South will not justify the deeds this Rebellion has dis¬ 
closed. We grant that the destruction of the masses by 
yellow-fever infection and clandestine burning of steam¬ 
boats, and cruelty to prisoners, and assassination are 
not conceived or encouraged as just by many that are 
in arms against us, yet they could have raised a voice 
against such barbarities. The almost deified and Nor¬ 
thern-lionized rebel chieftain, Lee, could not have daily 
known and seen the miseries and deaths by brutal treatment 
of our poor starved patriots of those Richmond “ hells,” had 
he been so great and good. His word was law. Why did 
he not exercise it ? Why did not he and the Southern pul¬ 
pit enter their protests in the face of Heaven against the 
barbarities of the dark ages ? That protest to-day, were 
there one, would relieve this Rebellion, in the eyes of the civ¬ 
ilized world, of much that must now forever stigmatize it 
with crimes unparalleled in the history of any warfare. 
Although individuals may be right, yet the spirit that is eith¬ 
er silent or justifies such enormities, will find tools for any 
measure. Just conceive of that plot to destroy the masses 
of our Northern cities ! An educated Samaritan, as phy¬ 
sicians are supposed to be, from the very nature of their pro- 


19 


fession, turned into a devil, placing woolen cloths around 
feverish sufferers and hastening their deaths, in order to in¬ 
fect the goods with which to spread pestilence and death 
among the innocent masses ! All this done by commissioned 
rebel officers, and paid for by Confederate bonds ! Then 
again, think of the plot, the execution of a part of which 
plunged us into such grief for the death of so world-wide 
honored and great a man as was President Lincoln. A plot 
planned in Canada by once leading office-holders of the Na¬ 
tional Government, and approved by the rebel chiefs in 
Richmond, to assassinate all the prominent officers at Wasli- 
ington by cool and stragetic and deeply-laid secret plans ! 
Such is official announcement after thorough investigation. 
Truly we need scourging to purify us. Out of the depths 
of our character will flow the means of our salvation. Rev¬ 
olutions lay waste, but their assuaging is followed by purity 
and peace. We trust present developments may make us 
watchful and honest and earnest to be just. “ We acknow¬ 
ledge, O Lord, our wickedness, and the iniquity of our fath¬ 
ers.” “ Lo! the wicked bend their bow, they make ready 
their arrow upon the string, that they may privily shoot at 
the upright in heart.” “ Oh! that the salvation of Israel 
were come out of Zion ! When the Lord bringeth back the 
captivity of his people, Jacob shall rejoice, and Israel shall 
be glad,” 

III. But the immediate and poignant source of the Na¬ 
tion’s grief to-day, is the murder of our beloved President , 
Abraham Lincoln. W e had learned to love that man. W e 
more than believed in him, trusted him, admired his wisdom 
and integrity. We loved him. He had that indescribable 
something , called a great and good heart , that fastened the 
people to him—that inwrought his life and existence with 
their sympathies and affections. 

No man ever came to the head of the Nation as President 
under such trials and difficulties. The hopes of millions then 
rested in the folds of the old flag, which South Carolina had 
dishonored. Secession was ruin, yet openly advocated; and 


a 


20 


treason lurked all through official channels. The new, un¬ 
tried, inexperienced, and awkward President was despised 
by whole States of traitors. The people who chose him con¬ 
stitutionally loved his principles, while many who opposed 
him loved the Government he represented. Both were one 
in its support, though differing justly in political views, and 
were full of anxiety. Apologists for Secession and Treason 
were everywhere, at home and abroad. "W hat a Herculean 
task to cleanse the Augean stables and save the Republic. 
The people had assigned to him a duty, and he brought the 
energies of a clear and honest mind, sustained by a sublime 
faith in the ultimate triumph of Right, to its performance. 
Deeply impressed with the necessity of Divine support, he 
spent, like Havelock, from one to two hours each morning 
in reading God’s word and prayer. He took a firm place in 
the people’s heart the moment the telegraph flashed over the 
country his last request to his neighbors at Springfield, when, 
in view of coming duties greater than since Washington’s 
time, he wanted they should pray for him. The Ration 
took up that request with a hearty “amen,” and no man has 
been borne to the Throne of Grace more frequently and fer¬ 
vently than Abraham Lincoln. 

In his public life, one signal mark of his greatness is the 
universal confidence and respect he has received from the 
greatest men of the Ration. He selected as his advisers some 
of the strongest men in all departments of the Government. 
They were men of culture, of great acquisitions, of large ex¬ 
perience and of signal ability. He choose such men Im¬ 
proper places, and he has secured their admiration of him as 
a man and a statesman, and has used them to build anew the 
walls of a great Ration. His Cabinet officers, his Generals 
in the field, and his ministers at Foreign Courts are the most 
distinguished men of the age, as their labors testify, yet 
President Lincoln has stood among them all—admired for 
his ability, loved for his kindness, trusted for his integrity, 
and reverenced for his sublime devotion to duty and his deep 
faith in the overruling providence of God. That he should 


21 


thus secure and retain the ever-growing love and labor and 
admiration of the greatest men of the time for over four years 
of the most stormy trials that ever afflicted nations, stamps 
him as one of the greatest, if not the grand human colossus 
of the age. 

Then his relation to the people was peculiar. He sprung 
from the poorest class. His family belonged to the true no¬ 
bility of the industrious poor. Difficulties in his life were 
spurs to his native genius. Cradled in poverty, schooled in 
self-reliant efforts, ambitious to recognize true excellence, 
his life-struggle was eloquent with sympathy for the people. 
He was a true representative of American self-reliance issu¬ 
ing in the truest success. When honored by the people, 
he knew how to educate them in public affairs. His practi¬ 
cal common sense, his lucid reasoning, his every-day illus¬ 
trations drawn from common experience, made his State pa¬ 
pers plain and intelligible to the masses, stripped from his 
opponents all sophistry and “ pernicious obstraction,” and 
thoroughly acquainted the people who supported the Gov¬ 
ernment with its practical operations. He also threw a warm 
heart and a genial humor into all his correspondence and pub¬ 
lic records that drew the people to him in the confidence of 
children for a father. So the humblest home was enlight¬ 
ened and cheered in their country’s cause and brought near 
to him chosen as their leader. Nearly all families had made 
sacrifices for that country which they knew he loved and 
most unselfishly toiled and prayed to save. Every house had 
some one in the war. Hence his heart was tied in patriotic 
love to all households, and filial tenderness, developed in 
trial, flowed like a river of love to his great heart, weighed 
down with its sacred burden. 

Again, he was a friend to humanity. He was opposed to 
slavery from principle, but opposed to interfering with it in 
the States until the Rebellion forced the necessity, to save 
the Union. He moved with the people and watched God’s 
Providence. He did not shrink from his duty when the time 
came to perform it. He has carved his name on this age in 


« 


22 


consequence as u The Great Emancipator. ” Millions of the 
world wonder and admire. So deep his iaith, so sublime 
his convictions in God’s providential decisions, and so inflex¬ 
ible his purposes, and firm his positions when once taken, 
that his course through history is one of the highest moral 
grandeur. He closely studied events, and used defeats as 
beacons to show him the right, until he struck, in this war, 
the rock— Emancipation. Then God was with him. Then 
the prayers of all God’s children, slave and free, were with 
him. Since then, successive events have formed steps on¬ 
ward and upward, on which he has moved to glory immor¬ 
tal. lie appeared not as a meteor—a momentary blaze, 
then gone; but his career has been like a growing sun, 
whose splendor will shine dowm the ages as a beacon to lead 
millions to seek the activities of a higher and better life. 
During his hard and sad career, though strong in the strength 
of his cause, he had occasion for depression but never for 
despair. His heart-burden was the delivery of his country 
from civil war. On God, he said, he rolled his country’s 
cause. With faith in the ultimate triumph of truth he stood 
sublimely amid wreck and ruin. Four years he was our 
standard-bearer. Again the people, the army and navy— 
all joined their decision to have his experience carry us 
through the storm. He was successful. Flood-liglits of 
victory blazed along the sky ; rebellion fell by his blows, 
his policy unchanged—no disunion, no slavery, no armis¬ 
tice, and unconditional submission to the rightful authority. 
“ Amen and amen,” cried the army and people. Abraham 
Lincoln rose in humanity and magnanimity as he rose to the 
triumphs of peace. He saw the military despotism crushed 
and its power broken. He entered its fallen Capital, not as 
a conquerer only as he overcame the hostility in the heart 
to a long-proud and sinning people, but as a merciful deliv¬ 
erer from the miseries of delusion and oppression. He en¬ 
tered not at the head of his army in magnificent triumph ; 
His mission was one of mercy. He had done his work. He 
was standing on the National Nebo. His life had rounded 


23 


up most beautifully. The Nation and the world had crowned 
him with “ great in goodness and good in greatness.” Full 
with charity to all, and with malice towards none, was his 
heart, while the people’s joy was boundless. But his life 
yet must mingle in the sacrifice to bring peace to the Na¬ 
tion, justice to its enemies, eternal infamy to their cause, 
success to the right and the moral sympathy of civilized Na¬ 
tions with the historic struggle of the Republic to preserve 
its life and substantiate the promise of humanity. What a 
change ! Joyful trappings wreathed at once with emblems 
of grief inexpressible. States and cities and hamlets and 
homes dressed in sepulchral gloom. Business still, and the 
streets full of mourners. The President was dead, dead, dead ! 
The noble, file humble, the great was dead ! He has been 
murdered by an assassin ! From thoughts fixed upon a 
merciful amnesty for the guilty, deluded and oppressed, he 
is at once delivered into God’s eternal rest. He has gone 
beyond his country’s trials. This universal wail of a grief- 
stricken people will not reach him. How brief is life, how 
fleeting earthly honors, how vain is all but hope in mercy of 
God. 

“ Oh! why should the spirit of mortal be proud— 

Like a swift-fleetmg meteor,—a fast flying cloud— 

A flash of the lightening—a break of the wave— 

He passeth from life to liis rest in the grave.” 

These familiar words of this noble martyr was by none 
more deeply felt and realized than by him. But he is dead. 
Like lightning he passed from life to his grave. Yesterday, 
strong, vigorous in his work, a world gazing with awe upon 
his majestic march through history, to-day, cold in death ! 
Yesterday, his work done—Rebellion crushed, Slavery abol¬ 
ished, Union restored,—to-day, cold in death ! Yesterday, 
his lips flowing with mercy and good will to his enemies, to¬ 
day, cold in death ! Yesterday, a Nation wild with joy, to¬ 
day, a Nation bending in grief with its heart lacerated by 
the murder of its Chief! 

“ Mourn for the man of amplest influence 
Yet clearest of ambitious crime.” 

A friend of humanity has fallen. Weep ye that love your 


24 


country,—that love liberty,—that rejoice in the dignity and 
nobility of labor—weep for the death of Abraham Lincoln. 
O thou grand and glorious spirit—living we loved thee, dead 
we cherish thy memory* All men wail thy departure. The 
rich will rear thee monuments of marble,—the poor will 
give thee monuments of affectionate hearts. Thou hast 
wrapped thyself around the Nation’s heart in the habiliments 
of greatness and goodness. Let now those better angels of 
our nature welcome thee to the Spirit-land, where thy soul 
may bathe in the effulgence of the Eternal Throne, and 
through the ages may drink of the river of celestial love. 
(3 ur noble martyr President suffered much for us and for 
the world. But now he belongs to the race. He will live 
with us in what he has done for us. He traversed the dreary 
mountains of toil and martyrdom to gather into Freedom’s 
folds the remnants of Jehovah’s tribes. How the wild weird 
wail of the negro will help swell the chorus of lamentation 
over his death. He was their friend and Emancipator. How 
their hearts thrill with gratitude to God that Abraham Lin¬ 
coln broke their chains. But not only the slave lias wept 
with joy, but his outgushing love for our dead President has 
often overwhelmed his great heart while he turned aside and 
wept. Not simply the freed African and the poor American 
will mourn, but the Alpine Swiss home, the Italian villa, 
the German cottage, and the Irish hut, will be draped in 
black and sound with the wail of woe,—all who love and 
long for freedom everywhere have learned to know and love 
Abraham Lincoln. As the song of sorrow from our an¬ 
guished hearts die away upon the Western plains and linger 
sadly towards the Pacific slopes, w r e shall hear flowing in 
from Europe one long deep dirge of grief and sympathy and 
praise for the death of this great American martyr to Human 
Liberty. 

IY. It is not necesssary to cite as an evidence, but only 
refer as a fact of our National grief, to the funeral ceremo- 
nies now transpiring in the land. Our leader fell in the 
midst of the battle, and the people, while carrying him to 


25 


his burial, are making great lamentation over him. Busi¬ 
ness has been stayed and a solemn Sabbath of grief has pre¬ 
vailed for weeks. But— 

“ Let the Nation we£p 
As they bear the martyr 
To his last long sleep.” 

The atmosphere still trembles with solemn rolls of minute 
guns and plaintive chimes of tolling bells. The flag draped 
still droops midway full of many sighs—grief-stricken mourn- 
er£ are everywhere, There lieth one dead in every house— 
from the Executive Mansion to the lowliest slave-hut in the 
South. 

If our martyr President’s re-election was a sublime conti- 
dence in his wisdom and fidelity, then the involuntary out- 
gushing tributes of love from all sources is another sublime 
fact that will inhere in history, as his great virtues, ingrafted 
into American character, develop into the joys of liberty and 
love. What a triumphant march crowns him on his way to his 
burial! How changed from four }^ears since, when he reached 
the Capital in disguise to save his country. With the help 
of God and loyal bayonets and wise counsels he did save it. 
His own blood sealed its salvation. He returns to his home 
like a mighty conquerer, known and honored to the ends 
of the earth. While the whole country leave their work and 
rush to behold the passing pageant, and cast flowers of affec¬ 
tion upon his bier, cities and States are truly his pall bear¬ 
ers, the greatest of the Nation are his guard of honor, mil¬ 
lions in silence with uncovered heads crowd the shroud¬ 
ed pathway, hung with drooping mourning emblems, 
and myriad choral voices chant dirges, whose grand melody, 
reverberating through the draped dome of the National 
mausoleum, seems like music from the eternal world, wel 
coming home the spirit of the great departed. What a tri¬ 
bute this, to exalted worth and virtuous fidelity ! If this 
mournful though grand pageant flatter not the eye and ear 
of death, it shows that the people can appreciate exalted vir¬ 
tue in their rulers. Never in any land was there such a 
mourning procession, and such swelling tides of grief. Never 
4 ^ 


2G 


did villages, cities, workshops, and homesteads pour out the 
evidences of love ; and, as the tomb cast forward toward the 
West its deep shadows, never did such myriad hands reach 
forth to receive the sacred ashes of their lamented President. 
God grant that this baptism of sorrow may consecrate anew 
our Nation to the principles for which lie gave his life, until 
we shall be purged of the elements that breed assassins, 
tyrants and slaves. But our President is dead ! 

“Pause now and weep— 

NVeep for the Chieftain just dropped from your side— 

Nobly he toiled with you, nobly he died; 

Ye may search for his like as long years circle round, 

But. a loftier spirit will never be found— 

Pause now and weep! 

“Cliaunt the sad dirge— 

Mid silence and sadness the sweet strains will rise 
Like flower breathing incense to him in the skies. 

Cliaunt the sad dirge.” 

Now, my dear friends, why all this grief, this outgushing 
sorrow of the people,—this sacrifice for our country ? It 
has its high and holy lessons. On April 19tli, the anniver¬ 
sary of the first blood shed for the Union in this war, the 
anniversary of Lexington battle of Revolutionary history— 
the birtli-day of political and civil liberty—on April 19th, 
1865, henceforth hallowed with sacred memories, this whole 
Nation, by Heaven’s proclamation, bent in solemn obsequies 
over the mortal remains of our late President. On April 
19th, when a vast funeral cortege was moving up Broadway, 
New York, to the muffle-drum-beats for the noble dead, a 
large clock with fingers pointed to 7-22, the precise mo¬ 
ment when President Lincoln breathed his last. On March 
1th preceding, he stood before the world most sublimely in 
that religious inaugural, while the sun-light through the 
rifted clouds kissed his forehead in recognition of his deep 
faith there expressed in the God of Justice, whose righteous¬ 
ness will not cover the earth as the waters the sea, until the 
oppressed go free. He seemed, so high his position and so 
great the events of his four years’ career, he seemed like 
God’s embassador to preach to the civilized world through 
their ministers around him there assembled, the Gospel of 




27 


Human Liberty. “ And when these things begin to come 
to pass , then look up, and lift up your heads; for your 
redemption draweth nigh.” God’s people met from 12 to 
1 that day to pray he might be the great instrument to crush 
Rebellion, to restore the Union, to establish justice, and to 
bring peace, How soon that time-piece marked the answer 
to our prayers. All had been done through his agency, but 
the work was not complete until the people were united as 
one man, and the civilized world compelled to acknowledge 
the crime of the Rebellion and the justice of the National 
cause, by one last great act in the bloody drama—the fiend¬ 
ish assassination of the President himself ! 

1. Let us then learn from this crime the justice of our 
cause and the wickedness of treason. “ The blood of the 
Martyrs is the seed of the Church”; so the blood of our 
President will cement the bonds of our Union, and strike 
terror into the hearts of the traitorous fiend that dare raise 
his hand to sever the sacred ties. We rest now in the jus¬ 
tice of our cause. Never so deeply did we feel this inspira¬ 
tion. Rebellion sealed its doom by this act so long plotted 
and discussed in the Rebel Confederacy. When Rebellion 
gave gold to the assassin to spread consternation among 
loyal masses and send divisions into their camps that would 
raise clamor against the war, it only sent “Judas to his own 
place,” and brought unity and redemption out of murder. 
Party lines are lost in the surges of grief that roll over the 
land. The mercy rising in all hearts has given away to one 
demand for simple justice. When the President was slain, 
the murderous blow fell on the constitutional shields against 
treason, and the rebound has sent weight and force to exe¬ 
cute the law. Slavery’s death-damp will no longer rust and 
conceal God’s judgments. Give freedom and franchise to 
every loyal man, then from the great Martyr’s grave will 
arise an eternal glory to the race, and to the age. 

But why such a blow to teach us to be just ? God willed 
it, else it would not have been. The President died at the 
right time, else still be with us. His career was complete 


28 


and glorious. He did his work. He fell on the pivot be¬ 
tween salvation and reconstruction. God only knows what 
the magnanimity of his heart might have done in pacifica¬ 
tion. Dying as he did, his name without a stain, his noble 
record will rise in history like the tall cliff on which centu¬ 
ries gaze with awe and admiration. But by the memory of 
his great service to our bleeding country,—by the principles 
of Human Liberty,—by the death-wail of our starved and 
murdered heroes,—by the people’s most precious heart-blood 
drawn in the martyrdom of the President, let us swear to 
be just to the loyal, let every soldier swear upon his sword- 
hilt like the Ancient Swiss, that America shall be free,— 
shall be purged of the very roots and seeds of Treason, 
then can Swiss Winklereid’s epitaph be carved upon Ins 
tomb-stone—“ I make way for Liberty.” Thus inspired, 
with a prayer of justice, for loyalty and right, when the 
cloud of grief lifts, we shall be wiser, purer, stronger. 

2. Let us learn fidelity to our country, and renewed sup¬ 
port to her faithful rulers. 

How our noble dead rules our hearts to-day from his 
tomb, encircled with laurel, and ivied with a nation’s affec¬ 
tions. But few public men are so thoroughly appreciated 
while living as President Lincoln was, yet how more glori¬ 
ously his virtues crop out since his death. What a satisfac¬ 
tion, could the Nation have had one hour to express to him 
alive, their love for his great heart, and their gratitude for 
his great services. No! They can only do homage to his 
memory by adhering to his principles, defending with their 
lives the country he gave his life for, and enfolding within 
their affection his afflicted family. While we honor the 
dead, how deep should be our gratitude to the President’s 
counselors. He knew his efficient friends and able offi¬ 
cers. Hence through tirades of calumny, did he hold fast 
to the tried and true. His Cabinet have done the greatest 
work with the least praise. Not till justice speaks without 
prejudice, will Stanton receive credit for his mighty services 
in crushing this Rebellion. He has been the head for abuse 




29 


when delay or defeat marked our arms, but always omitted 
among the heroes when the success of the combinations of 
his deeply studied and magnificent plans have thrilled the 
nation with the very madness of joy. Justice will yet be 
done to the War Department of President Lincoln, whose 
culminating glory flows from its matchless plans and con¬ 
summate execution. Stanton was both the arm and head 
of the nation when its heart was stunned with grief, when 
the acknowledged heart was stilled in death. While setting 
detection most wisely, as events proved, on conspirators’ and 
murderers’ paths, at the same time, through his influence 
and energy, in a few hours from the death of the President, 
our present able and loyal Chief Magistrate was sworn into 
power, and modestly, though firmly, was holding the reins 
of government. During this terrible calamity, not a jar 
occurred in the great Constitutional machinery. Truly, 
Republican government must be the strongest form yet 
tested. But its stability and harmony arise, more plainly 
do these events prove, from the intelligence of the people. 
A new era thus dawns upon our land. More firm are all— 
more firmly established are the wavering,—thrice armed are 
the loyal, for they feel their quarrel just. So God overrules 
human wrongs to advance human rights.. While shrouded 
in gloom, the mysteries of Providence break forth in hope, 
and promises gleam through the darkness like stars on the 
brow of night. 

3. Let us learn from this event more devotion to God’s 
providence. How universal this devotion to-day. Ho official 
orders gathered millions at the foot of God’s throne. 
Hot a man, but is bowed like a child in tears. Hot 
a slave, but wails the death of the great Emancipator of the 
19th century. Hot a hater of goodness and a sympathizer 
with treason but who is dumb. A few are so depraved as 
to disgrace the semblence of manhood in rejoicing over the 
event. We pity their depravity, we fear not their danger. 
Currents of business have turned aside to honor unselfish 
greatness. All instinctively exclaim—“ Lo ! God is in this 
place!” 


30 


4. But one lesson more from this great life —the value of 
moral worth. 

This world is a wilderness of anxiety—a valley of tears. 
Sources of grief are countless. But what relief when a 
representative man leaves such a legacy of moral worth. 
Acknowledged by all as great in sympathy, in charity, 
generosity, in Godly fear, in all things that the humblest 
home appreciates, as well as great in wisdom and justice, 
his death becomes a personal affliction. It was also spiri¬ 
tual, because it mingled with our religious sacrifices when 
our hearts were dwelling upon One,—the example of 
infinite purity and worth — who was slain for our 
eternal good, making Good Friday a holyday in the 
Christian Church. Our lamented Chief "was then trying 
to imitate the example of his blessed Master. His love 
of country was all-pervading—it was a passion. Her 
troubles w*ere his sadness, her success was his joy. His 
religious faith which wrought him so closely into the reli¬ 
gious support of the nation is most grandly exhibited in his 
words to a friend concerning the dark days of Gettysburg— 
“ I rolled on Him the burden of my country, and rose from 
my knees lightened of my load, feeling a peace that passeth 
all understanding—feeling I could leave myself, my 
country, and my all in the hands of God.” 

Such sublime faith of our lamented Chieftian, running 
through all the channels of his life, tasks the highest images 
of love and greatness. That spirit made him listen to the 
story of fhe most obscure,—that spirit saved many valuable 
lives from military executions,—that spirit restored many 
souls from dungeons to a better life,—that spirit expressed 
sympathy with the humblest soldier’s mind,—that spirit, also, 
helped him to grasp the gravest questions of Human Pro¬ 
gress, and project himself forward as the liberator and friend 
of humanity,—that spirit bows the people, not to eulogize, 
but to mourn,—that spirit makes his place vacant in the 
heart of the poor cottager, and in the meetings of his Cabi¬ 
net and in the counsels of his Generals,—that spirit was the 


31 


life-giving power that lifted heavenward, and spread out¬ 
ward the boughs of the tree of Liberty until they bent in 
beauty to the spray of both Oceans,—that spirit makes his 
death personal and national, makes our tears flow with our 
dirges of grief,—that spirit makes the memorable events of 
his high career stand out as signal waves in the future to 
lead twilight millions to Liberty and to God ! But Lincoln 
is dead! 

“ His voice is silent in your council hall 
Forever; and whatever tempests lower, 

Forever silent; even if they broke 
In thunder, silent; yet remember all 
He spoke among you, and the Man who spoke : 

Who never sold the truth, to serve the hour, 

Nor palter’d with Eternal God for power; 

Who let the turbid streams of rumor flow 
Thro’ either babbling world of high and low ; 

Whose life was work, whose language rife 
With rugged maxims liewn from life ; 

Who never spoke against a foe. 
******* 

Such was he : his work is done: 

But while the races of mankind endure, 

Let his great example stand 
Colossal, seen of every land, 

And keep the soldier firm, the statesman pure ; 

Till in all lands and through all human story 
The path of duty be the way to glory. 

But Lincoln is dead! 

“ Dead ? Is he dead ? 

The nation’s own president—he, who to-day, 

Lived, breathed, and acted, whose generous sway, 

Won o’er the hearts of the loyal and true, 

As he fought the great fight of his country all through ? 
Dead ? Is lie dead ? 

Tell the sad tale! 

Waft it, ye night winds, from city to plain,— 

Speed it, ye lightnings, from ocean to main,— 

Tell to the nation, that he, their great head 

By the red hand of murder lies bleeding and dead,— 

Tell the sad tale! 

The seal has been set. 

Go bend o’er the turf where he slumbers alone, 

And “ Abraham Lincoln ” carve on the stone; 

The mortal remains turn to dust where they lie, 

But the NOBLE OLD PRESIDENT NEVER CAN DIE ! 

The seal has been set.” 


APPENDIX 


In accordance with the order of Dr. E. McClellan, Assistant 
surgeon U. S. A., in charge of U. S. Gen’l Hospital, Fort Monroe, 
Va., over two thousand soldiers assembled April 19th, 1865, to 
celebrate the obsequies of our late President —Abraham Lincoln. 
The whole nation were at that hour, bowed as one heart, in grief. 

The convalescents and attendants came by Wards to the public 
stands erected for the occasion. Each Ward sent forth in its com¬ 
pany of patients with arms in slings, and on crutches: battle- 
scarred heroes hobbling to mourn the death of their best friend 
and Commander-in-Chief! The companies of the Veteran Reserve 
Corps, from both Chesapeake and Hampton Divisions, came in 
mourning movements, led by their commander, Lieut. Cullen. 
The colored troops of the 2d and 4th Divisions were also in their 
place in the throng, to unite their grief with the Nation over the 
corpse of their great Emancipator. To render more solemn this 
scene of assembling mourners, the muffled drum-beats, and the 
dirges of the Hospital Band filled the air with plaintive tones. 
The whole scene was most impressive. 

On the temporary platform in the open air, around which were 
the soldier-multitude, were the Surgeon in charge and all his Med. 
ical Staff; some Officers of the army, citizens from abroad, and 
the Chaplains of the various Divisions of the Hospital. 

The exercises on this solemn occasion were opened by a dirge 
from the Band, after which Chaplain Marshall, of the Chesapeake 
Hospital, read suitable portions of Scripture, remarking briefly 
upon the subject that filled all hearts with sadness, when Chaplain 
Billings, of the Hampton Division of the Hospital, followed in an 
appropriate prayer. After singing, Chaplain Raymond, of the 2d 
Division, followed in an address, giving a very full analysis of 
President Lincoln’s character, and ably eulogizing his great servi- 





33 


ces to the country during the last four years of our stormy history, 
when Chaplain Billingsly followed in a strain similar to the previ¬ 
ous speaker. The exercises were concluded with brief remarks 
and a fervent prayer by Rev. Mr. Craighead, editor of the N. Y. 
Evangelist, just returning to New York from Richmond, where, 
imbibing deeper feeling of the crime of Rebellion, culminating in 
the death of our President, he was enabled to make us all feel the 
guilt of Treason and Slavery, and to inspire us with stronger pur¬ 
pose to honor President Lincoln’s name, by unswerving devotion 
to the principles for which he was a Martyr. 

The vast assemblage then returned to their various places in 
and around the Hospital, with the sorrowful ceremonies so stamped 
upon their hearts as to make this day ever memorable in their 
life’s experience. 


LETTER TO BATTERY ‘F,’ 3d P. H. A., 

Written at the request of many of our soldier-friends of the Hospital, the 
above Battery, and Camp Distribution, who have been at times during the 
war identified with the moral and religious history of this military post. 

Soldiers :—In compliance with the request of many of your 
number, I will give a brief statement of the facts connected 
with the growth and present salutary influence of the religious 
work which you have all been instrumental in building up, 
systematizing, and enlarging at this place. I do this reluctantly, 
because the record must be somewhat personal, and also very 
brief,—necessarily omitting the names of so many efficient co-work¬ 
ers who have encouraged us under all the circumstances and changes 
of this peculiar life of religious labor;—and we must also omit all 
incidents of the greatest interest that have transpired in the Hos¬ 
pital, the Camp Distribution, and the Military Prisons, during 
the eighteen months, the last two of which have been under the 
direction of your efficient and worthy Commander, Captain John 
A. Blake. 

Chesapeake Seminary Building, standing alone on the Roadstead 
two miles north of the Fort, presents with its long white front of 
tall columns and high dome, a most majestic appearance to trav¬ 
elers passing over the Bay, across to Norfolk or up the James 
River. War knows no rule but necessity to meet its demands, so 
this institution of learning having been variously appropriated for 
5 



34 


Head Quarters and Regimental hospital purposes since the spring 
of 1861, was organized into a IT. S. General Hospital in March 
1862, by Dr. John M. Cuyler, Medical Director at Old Point. 
The coming and going of surgeons and patients and attendants 
since then have been like the tide-waves, breaking upon the beach 
at the base of the main building and the star-barrack wings on 
either side and nearer the water. The location is beautiful and 
healthy apart from simple acclimation necessary to nearly 
all strangers. No one remains now who was here at the opening 
of the Hospital, except the Directress, Mrs. M. B. Dully, who 
came from the Hygeia Hospital at the Fort where she had been 
since June of 1861. She came with Dr. Cuyler as Medical Di¬ 
rector and Dr. McCay as Surgeon in Charge, when thousands of 
sick fever patients were thrown into these unfurnished wards from 
McClellan’s army moving up the Peninsula, when supplies were 
scarce, and the sympathies and energies of the benevolent were 
taxed to the utmost to minister to the suffering lying everywhere, 
in halls, passage-ways, on floors, on the ground, on straw,—from 
basement to garret, and everywhere outside where a board or tent 
cover could shield them from the incessant rains of that spring. 
What a contrast those privations bear to the present advantages. 
The Sanitary system has progressed as well as the Military to meet 
war’s stern demands. But through these years of trial and change 
Mrs. Dully has remained here, at the head of the internal economy 
of the Hospital for the comfort of the sick and wounded, always 
gathering around her ladies for the heads of the kitchens, linen 
rooms, and wards, whose names will be inseparable with the his¬ 
tory of the hospital, on account of their zeal and co-operative effi¬ 
ciency in providing for the comfort and restoration of the helpless 
and the suffering. Both in temporal arrangements and religious 
efforts for the benefit of the soldiers, she has always taken the most 
lively interest, (as the immense supplies she has received from 
Pittsburg for the linen and store rooms, and the gathering of Li¬ 
brary and building Chapel in 1863 testify) to give encouragement 
and health, and home-like feeling to all who have been brought to 
this Hospital. The fact of her long and efficient service at this 
place will justify this reference without her permission or knowl¬ 
edge. 

When I was assigned by President Lincoln to this Hospital as 



35 


Chaplain soon after it opened in 1862, through the kind influence 
of letters from Hon. E. W. Leavenworth and Hon. C. B. Sedg¬ 
wick and Rev. Hr. Gurley, there was neither Library nor Chapel, 
nor means for securing the advantages of either. Our available 
religious privileges were personal interviews from cot to cot, writ¬ 
ing letters, taking messages, getting heart-histories, pointing out 
God’s kind providence in all—so cheering to lonely sufferers. 
Impromptu prayer-meetings from room to room, ward to ward, and 
tent to tent, soon changed that ice-berg prejudice that met all 
stranger Chaplains in the early part of the war, into warm, genial 
friendship, and our intercourse ever since has been of the most 
friendly character, and I trust, mutually profitable for the cause of 
Christ. To make our work efficient, and our donations from 
friends available, we needed a Chapel, and a Reading Room and 
Library. We wanted to draw out the religious power in men’s 
hearts, consolidate it, and make it a means to the personal excel¬ 
lence of the soldiers, and hence the moral welfare and higher dis¬ 
cipline of the Hospital,—for the religious integrity of patients is 
an earnest of a Hospital’s harmony and prosperity. Such means 
would destroy indolence, vice-tendencies,—would fill up the hours 
of convalescence with the best kind of secular and religious read¬ 
ing. A few hundred dollars spent thus to make most useful the 
large magazine and book supplies of friends and “ Aid Societies,” 
would save to society thousands that otherwise must be raised by 
taxation 'to support the immorality that would otherwise flow 
back upon it from the influences of civil war, if we do not thus 
counteract it. There would come a moral revenue to the country 
in the good thoughts started and better lives formed, making these 
outlays for religious and intellectual advantages the best invest¬ 
ments for the purity and the stability of the nation. Friends North 
appreciateed these statements by material responses. The U. S. 
Christian Commission, which has furnished us so liberally with 
miscellaneous reading for free distribution, did not then in the lat¬ 
ter part of ’62 and early part of ’63 build chapels and reading 
rooms, hence our application to their Board for funds for a chapel 
failed, and application to some wealthy men in New York City 
through the New York Observer failed, so private individuals in 
Boston, through Dr. S.- L. Abbott, had built and transported to 
Fort Monroe in sections a patent portable building for a Chapel, 


36 


while friends at Sing Sing, N. Y., Pittsburg and Syracuse, raised 
for us funds with which to furnish it. Soldier mechanics took de¬ 
light to erect, seat, paint, and carpet it after the furniture arrived 
from Baltimore, and prepare it for the ordinances of the sanctuary. 
The donors gave this Chapel upon the condition that, when no lon¬ 
ger needed here for a Hospital Chapel, it should be transferred to 
some other point of benevolent labor. Since its dedication to the 
cause of Christ and our country among the soldiers in 1863, nearly 
every day or night have there been meetings for preaching or 
prayer, debating societies, bible-classes, Sunday schools, and sing¬ 
ing schools, announced by the Chapel bell,—a gift by Messrs. 
Fitch, VanBuren, and Townsend of Syracuse, N. Y., which when 
the war ends, is to be transferred to the Scattergood Mission 
Chapel in their city, not from its value, but from its patriotic asso¬ 
ciations. 

Thousands of soldiers have been encamped around and against it. 
Throwing open doors and windows, we had meetings nightly, when 
the chapel would be jammed and a half dozen visible heads in each 
window and others still beyond listening. What religious exper¬ 
iences these soldier travelers to their regiments have unfolded. I 
have known forty men either talk or pray in two hours of the 
meetings, and over two hundred rise for prayers. Most deeply 
solemn were those meetings. How stately God’s spirit has moved 
amid those throngs to bring hearts into a higher life. So changing 
were the audiences that every night would present new faces—all 
thanking God for this delightful and ever memorable religious 
home. All nations and States and regiments would be represented . 
The voices of both white and colored troops would mingle in 
prayer and praise,—breaking down the prejudice of the one, and 
reforming the plantation habits of worship of the other. The fact 
of so many men coming and going daily for the last year has made 
this, and it still remains, one of the most useful and important 
posts for religious labor in the army. 

Battery F, under Captain Blake, has had a great work to take 
care of these moving armies. The quiet and order that have always 
prevailed and general satisfaction 1 have always heard expressed 
by the men attest to the just and systematic efficiency of your Bat¬ 
tery and its commanders. 

Not only your company, the Camp Distribution and the inmates 


37 


of the Chesapeake Hospital have been profited by these advanta¬ 
ges, but the whole surrounding country have availed themselves 
of these religious privileges. Families of Government employees 
at the Fort, and citizens of the country, and soldiers of Hampton 
Hospital have freely and cordially participated in all our meetings, 
debates, and singing-schools. The soldiers’ bible-class and chil¬ 
dren’s Sunday school at 2 p. m. on Sundays and the school for 
colored soldiers and attendants around Hospital and servants of 
sick and wounded officers, have never ceased their interest for the 
last year, although constantly changing. I shall always be grate¬ 
ful to those men of your company and the members of the Hospi¬ 
tal and the Veteran Reserve Corps stationed here, who have al¬ 
ways been present when possible, and ready to give their aid as 
teachers and active co-workers in all this arduous labor. 

The Library of 1500 volumes in the Reading Room adjoining 
Chapel was begun with a box of mouldy books sent in a good 
condition to our prisoners at Saulsbury, N. C., by the pupils of 
Hughes’ High School, Cincinnati, Ohio. The box was thrown out 
at Fort Monroe in the Fall of ’62, and the books turned over to 
me by Mrs. John Harris, of Philadelphia. This was the origin of 
our present Library of most veteran looking books and more than 
200 bound volumes of all kinds of magazines from their long and 
diligent circulation in Hospital wards by patients and attendants. 
We have received valuable additions to these from the Dutch Re¬ 
formed Board of New York, through Rev. Mr. Bingham, from 
New York and Pittsburg branches of U. S. C. C., from friends of 
soldiers, patients in Hospital, and from various private sources; 
also, through the contribution of the publishers and different indi¬ 
viduals connected at times with the Hospital, we have about twenty- 
five religious and secular daily and weekly papers on file in the 
Reading Room to which all have access six hours daily. This has 
truly been a religious and intellectual home to thousands of sol¬ 
diers who have passed through the Hospitals and Camp Distribu¬ 
tion at Fort Monroe. 

Every book, and article of furniture, and nail nearly has a his¬ 
tory—as everything came from private, and very little from pub¬ 
lic sources. The soldiers always freely co-operated. The beauti¬ 
ful bible was a present from them for use in the Chapel. Each 
man gave his five or # ten cent note—one his last five cent note, and 


38 


another two of his three postage stamps, his only convertible funds. 
Each one wanted stock in that bible. So with many other appli¬ 
ances essential to the work. With the aid of the soldiers and Dr. 
Abbot of Boston, Mrs. Maurice of Sing Sing, Mrs. Fitch of Syra¬ 
cuse, Miss Moorhead of Pittsburg, the Misses Kenly of Baltimore, 
and Mrs. Dully of the Hospital, our beautiful Bethesdean Taber¬ 
nacle was finally pitched, and its long usefulness to so many of our 
brave defenders has manyfold paid in moral value its expense in 
money. Col. Wm. L. James, the present Chief Q. M. of the Dept, 
of Va., then Capt. & A. Q. M., gave us every facility in his power, 
and was ever ready to accommodate us with what we could not 
elsewhere obtain. But just as all these agencies were thoroughly 
doing their work for the thousands of enlisted men passing through 
Chesapeake General Hospital early in 1864, a change was made. 
Surgeons McCay, Stocker and Snelling had respectively been in 
charge since the opening of the Hospital; but in February, 1804, 
the latter resigned and went home to New York to civil practice, 
when Dr. E. McClellan, Assistant Surgeon U. S. A., in charge of 
Hampton Hospital since its organization in August, 1862, was put 
in charge also of Chesapeake, when both Hospitals were consoli¬ 
dated, and in course of the Spring campaign all enlisted men were 
transferred to Hampton,and Chesapeake became the “Officers’ Divi¬ 
sion of the U. S. General Hospital, Fort Monroe. We felt at that 
time that, as the proportion of officers is so much less than of enlisted 
men, our privileges would not reach as many soldiers as their ex¬ 
tent and availability warranted. During the campaign of 1864, 
however, we were filled with sick and wounded officers from the 
Army of the James. But just as this change occurred, the Mili¬ 
tary Prison was established here, your Battery was brought here 
to guard it, and then Camp Distribution was removed to this 
point. Hence since February, 1864, these three institutions have 
constituted the field of our daily labor in connection with the Hos¬ 
pital. We have never wanted for men to spread the truth among. 
Daily our reading room would be filled with soldiers writing 
letters, reading books, perusing the papers on file, studying the 
maps, and selecting suitable matter to carry to their regiments. 
During one month 80,000 pages were issued from our reading 
room, 4,000 religious papers of all denominations were given away, 
1,000 letters were written, and 30 religious and literary meetings 


39 


were held in the chapel and barracks of the camp—including ser¬ 
mons, prayer-meetings, debates, bible-classes, Sunday-schools, 
class-meetings and singing schools. The aggregate results of our 
monthly reports since January 1, 1865, to April 30, 1865 amount 
as follows : Meetings of all kinds held, secular and religious, in 
Chapel and barracks of camp and prison, 122; number of reli¬ 
gious papers of all denominations distributed, 10,799; of tracts 
and soldiers’ small pocket books, 5,223, amounting in pages to 
168,692; of letters written in reading room, 2,040; and of li¬ 
brary books drawn from Library, read and returned 1,100; be¬ 
sides a large amount of testaments, bibles, magazines, pamphlets, 
prayer books, hymn books, &c. &c. We have been supplied 
weekly with boxes of reading from Rev. E. N. Crane, Agent of U. 
S. C. C. stationed at Norfolk. Va. This has been and still is one 
of the most available points, as the figures show, for Christian labor. 
Thousands of men have passed through here monthly either to the 
front or back to their homes. What a vast seeding—may God 
bless it to an abundant spiritual harvest. So many men thrown 
all around our Chapel, the access to them has been easy, and the 
moral results have been great. Tens of thousands of Union soldiers 
have thus found a religious home while tarrying but a day or a 
week at Camp Distribution. Many a heart has throbbed with 
joyful trust as it left this place. Many a soul has in gratitude 
looked to God for its security through the field of strife, and that 
it is thus far towards home from the hardships of national defence 
and salvation. I have been assisted in these works by Christian 
officers and privates who have, been inmates of the Hospital, as 
well as by the members of your Battery. Corp. Monroe, the sex¬ 
ton, and private Cushman, the librarian, have had most laborious 
positions, so many meetings in the Chapel and so many visitors 
to the Library. You have laid us all under great obligations for 
your kind sympathy and generous support. There has never been 
a jar in our intercourse, although stationed with so many men, 
within a few yards of our meetings. I shall ever remember your 
honor as soldiers, and your friendship as men. Your post has been 
one of permanence, yet one of danger and exposure and labor. 
Over 100,000 men have passed through your camp since you have 
been stationed at this point. These men have gone to Newbern, 
Hilton Head, Savannah, Mobile and New Orleans, and up the riv 


40 





ers of the States to Richmond, Washington, Baltimore, Wilming¬ 
ton, &c., and details of your company have been their guard. On 
nearly every boat running out from Fortress Monroe I find your 
comrades on duty. Going thus to all parts of the sea-coast and 
the inland, your dangers and exposures have been great; and 
hence you were called to mourn the loss by drowning of thirteen 
©f your comrades when the Government transport, “General Lyon,” 
was burned off Cape Hatteras, when returning to Fort Monroe 
from Wilmington. These men fell at the post of duty as martyrs 
and heroes for their country, equally as though killed on the field 
of battle. The soldier that promptly obeys orders is doing his 
duty to his country and his family, town, State and nation, will 
cherish his memory whether his remains were engulphed in a 
watery sepulchre or buried in the trenches among the undistin¬ 
guished dead of the bloody field. 

In this short narrative of a few changes and features of our moral 
work, I am glad to bear testimony to your Battery and command¬ 
ers for both efficiency in order and fidelity to trusts. So long as 
Camp Distribution remains at this Post, there will be—and we 
shall need your co-operation—a great field of religious work. But 
soon, I trust, we shall all return to our homes, with the conscious¬ 
ness that we have tried to do our duty to save our country in the 
place especially assigned us in God’s Providence. But our hearts 
throb sadly as the great drama closes. The blood of our noble 
leader must help seal the salvation of the Republic. But we have 
our country left and his example of grand integrity. Let us pray 
this great calamity may be sanctified to the national good. May 
God’s blessing go with you, and the many soldiers that have min¬ 
gled with us for the last three years at this Post, and may His 
Spirit enable you to crown your lives at last with the full record 
of true nobility, which shone in the goodness and greatness of our 
martyr President, Abraham Lincoln. 

Your friend sincerely, 

JAMES MARSHALL. 


LB S ’12 



































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